Sweet Sixteen
by Beansxx
Summary: Roxas sweet sixteen hasn't been so sweet. AkuRoku warning, and very un-manly weeping.


It's my birthday today. Everything that happened to Roxas [except for the last bit with Axel] has happened to me. I'm not very happy. My friends aren't helping much either, and I'm just in a foul mood. And I'm cold.

---

Roxas didn't know what to do with himself. It was his sixteenth birthday. He was sitting on Axel's couch, irritated. This day could have been worse, but he didn't want to think about it. He had been supposed to go and get his learner's driving permit today. His brother, Cloud, had promised. But Cloud had apparently had better things to do, and he hadn't called Roxas back. Roxas suspected that the bastard wasn't going to.

He had been supposed to go to town today for lunch with Hayner, Pence, and Olette, but Hayner had thrown a party the night before and had _insisted_ that everyone sleep over. So since everyone [more people than just Roxas and the three] had stayed, nobody had gone home by the time Roxas had left.

Bye-bye lunch plans. They had re-scheduled for tomorrow, but it wouldn't feel as special because it wasn't going to be his birthday anymore.

So Roxas had done the one thing he knew to do that couldn't _possibly_ go wrong: he went to visit Axel.

Axel loved Roxas, and Roxas loved Axel. It was generally accepted by Roxas' family, even though Axel was twenty and had his own apartment. But axel was a good guy.

But Roxas was wrong about this plan.

Axel had known that Roxas was going to come visit at some point in the day, so he had taken the day off. But when Roxas reached the apartment, there was a note on the door that read, "Demyx fuckin' took off last minute. I got called in. Come in anyway, I'll be home at 8:00."

Roxas was infuriated, and officially not happy with Demyx. Demyx _knew_ that it was Roxas' birthday, and he _knew_ that he wanted to spend some of it with Axel. Asshole.

Roxas felt like a spoiled brat, and he was angry at himself as he dwelled over the events of the day. His family was too poor to throw him a sweet sixteen party, and he was okay with that. But the little plans he _had_ made to make up for it had been completely overruled by everyone else, and that was what was bugging him. Hayner had ruined their lunch plans with a sleepover. Cloud wasn't going to take him to get his permit, and Demyx had taken the day off and had gotten Axel called into work. So now Roxas had no plans, no permit, and no Axel.

He felt so useless and unimportant. Any other day of the year, he would have brushed it all off and smiled and with a laugh said, "No problem." As a matter of fact, it happened all the time. But today was his birthday. And he had hoped that for one day, things would go right.

But it was just his luck.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He stared down at the ugly beige carpet of Axel's living room, wishing that the pricking in his sinuses would stop. That his nose wasn't starting to run a little. That his vision wasn't blurring. That his eyes weren't starting to burn and sting from the salty tears threatening to fall.

He blinked a few times, but to no avail. The tears began to roll down his cheeks and each breath shook his whole body. He just wanted to disappear. It was obvious that nothing was going to go right for him. He let out a little whimper, but he kept quiet. Axel did have neighbors, after all.

For a long time, Roxas just sat there and wept for a while. Finally, he gathered up the will to move and went into the kitchen to grab a paper towel. He wiped his tears and blew his nose, and threw it away before going back to the couch. He flopped down and sighed, staring at the door and curling up into a ball.

The door handle moved.

Roxas passed it off as nothing important; it was probably the crazy old lady from downstairs, forgetting where her apartment was again. When the door opened, he opened his mouth to let her know that apartment eight was still not her apartment, and it never was and never would be, but he closed it when the door swung open, and none other than _Axel_ stood there in the doorway in his black pants, black apron, and his crisp white button-up shirt [complete with a ridiculous black bowtie].

Roxas stared at him for a moment, decided that he was probably hallucinating, and turned over to face the back of the couch and weep quietly some more.

"Roxas?" Roxas considered answering the imaginary Axel-hallucination, decided against it, but did it anyway.

"Yeah." Roxas replied, voice cracking a bit.

"Baby…you okay?" Hallucination Axel asked. Roxas stuck to the firm belief that this was a hallucination, because nothing today could possibly start going right at this point. It could only get worse.

"Yeah." Roxas sighed, closing his eyes. Maybe if he fell asleep, the hallucination would go away. Then when he woke up, it would be eight, and Axel would be home.

"You don't sound okay." The sound of shoes being taken off and a hallucination entering the apartment invaded Roxas' ears. Roxas willed life to go away. It didn't; it just laughed on him, then took a mocking dump on his will to live.

"Don't I?" Roxas asked dejectedly. Well, if he was going crazy, he might as well interact with the results of his madness.

"What's wrong, honey?" Roxas felt a dip in the large, cushy couch where his legs were bent, and then a warm, skinny body draping itself over him. Suddenly his brain decided that it didn't want to play pretend anymore, and the charade fell. Axel wasn't a hallucination, he was home. Roxas wasn't crazy, just upset. New tears welled up in his eyes and spilled over, running in small rivulets down his face as he sat up and wrapped his arms tightly around Axel.

Axel hugged him back, rubbing comforting circles between his shoulder blades. Roxas sobbed into Axel's work shirt, feeling like an idiot and wishing he didn't feel so selfish.

After he calmed down a little, Axel placed a kiss on each of his cheeks, and then one on his lips. He dried Roxas' cheeks with a wrist cuff, and pulled Roxas into another comforting hug.

"I love you." Roxas whimpered. "You're the only thing that's ever gone right." He pulled away from Axel, gazing up at his face, those eyes, those tattoos, those high cheekbones, that pointed jaw that made Axel look like an elf, his red hair…

Axel was so perfect.

"Don't say that." Axel said. "There is one other thing that can't possibly go wrong, or be cancelled, taken away, or postponed." Roxas rested his forehead on Axel's clavicle, wondering what could have possibly gone right besides Axel coming home early.

"What's that?" he asked with a depressed sigh. Axel put his hands on Roxas' cheeks and lifted his head to look him in the eyes. A large smile spread across Axel's serious-just-a-minute-ago visage.

"You're legal."

---

Well, at least I can have sex, now. R&R, please, if you feel like it.


End file.
